Jack Bros.

Jack Bros. holds a peculiar place in video game history: it's the very first game from the Megami Tensei universe to officially reach Western markets, several years before the Persona brand became a household name in Europe and America. The player picks one of three imps who have wandered into the human world and must get home before midnight. Each of them has a different weapon and a different range, from a short ice attack to a slower but stronger projectile, so the character choice essentially determines the whole game's difficulty, and newcomers would do well to pick the one with the longest range.

The structure is simple and merciless. Each floor of the tower is a single top-down map on which the player searches for keys, uses them to open locks, and tries to descend a level, all while a timer keeps ticking down. Enemies have to be defeated because they leave behind extra time, and without it the game ends, creating a pleasant tension between cautious progress and the need to take risks. A top-down view of a floor with several levels of height is exactly where the stereoscopic display helps: the player can tell at a glance which platform is higher and where they can jump down to, which would be confusing on a flat image. The visuals are charming, with cartoonish demons from Atlus's well-known bestiary, and the music is unusually catchy for this platform.

The game came out very late in the console's life and never officially appeared in Europe at all, so the original print run was minimal, and its collector prices today rank among the highest in the entire Virtual Boy library. But it's precisely because of that rarity and pedigree that Jack Bros. is remembered more than most other titles. Set the legend around it aside, and what's left is a brisk arcade action game with clear rules that you can finish in one longer afternoon, and one worth returning to for better times. For fans of the Shin Megami Tensei series, it's also a mandatory starting point for its Western story, and a surprisingly lighthearted introduction to an otherwise pretty dark world.